Jesus Christ Superstar?

[Portrait]

Thanks for providing. Now the question is, is the quote authentic, and does the book give any sources? If not, then it’s no better than those purported vague quotes (sometimes unsourced, sometimes with the wrong citations, sometimes cherry-picked out of context) which supposedly ‘prove’ that we believe that the Pope is God, that we worship Mary, etc. which some anti-Catholics use as part of their arsenal.

Dear patrick457,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou for the above.

Whilst the book, Pop Goes the Gospel, is no mere superficial summary of the topic with which it treats, neither is it a weighty academic text giving in-depth analysis - it is an unpretentious paperback of 156 pages and is clearly intended for the popular market. Having said that, the editors avoid drawing uncritically on rumour or tabloid sensationalism and do endeavour to give a fair and balanced treatment of their topic.

Unfortunately, the Stephen Schwartz citation is not sourced and I suppose that those who disapprove of it will be only too ready to attach something sinister to that omission. However, the editor’s who co-authored the book are highly respected men within the Evangelical community, especially here in their native England, and I do not think that they would stoop to the level of ‘cherry-picking’ out of context and certainly not outright fabrication. Nevertheless, I wish that they had given a source for the citation, as indeed they do for many other quotes in the book.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[Portrait]

No it can not, but does that just beg the question? I would prefer to use St. Paul’s claim that he has become all things to all people for the sake of the Gospel. In other words, he uses any legitimate medium at his disposal. This too begs the question over what is legitimate. As Catholics, I think we should listen to what the Church says, or doesn’t say. So, do you know where the Catholic Church has condemned Jesus Christ Superstar? The last poster I asked this ignored the question. If not, then should we not be equally hesitant to judge or brothers and sisters who like this music?

Dear pnewton,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou for your response to my post.

It is perfectly true that St. Paul would employ any legitimate means at his disposal for the furtherance of the Gospel message, the operative word here being, surely, legitimate. Clearly, that would exclude any channel that was questionable or irreverent, as this would have vitiated the Gospel and denuded it of its efficacy. Thus his efforts to make the Gospel ‘accessible’ would have been counter-productive as well as dishonouring to the Christ whom he preached; it would have been to adopt the ‘wisdom of the world’ with the sad result that the ‘cross of Christ’ would have been ‘emptied of its power’ (cf. I Cor. 1: 17).

With respect to the Apostle’s words, ‘…I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some’ (I Cor. 9: 22), I cannot remember how many times I have seen this text erroneously cited to support the use of all manner of unhallowed methods in conveying the Gospel. If this is not a gross example of taking a text out of context and then turning it into a pretext, then I do not know what is. St. Paul, as can be clearly seen from the context (vs. 19-22), shows how he accommodated himself to the needs of specific groups. However, this did not mean that he acted in an unprincipled manner, compromised on Christian principles or employed dubious evangelistic methods. It simply means that he will sacrifice his own legitimate interests and preferences completely, if thereby some men may be saved.

True, there have been no official pronouncements from the Church denouncing the blasphemous musical Jesu**s Christ Super Star, and that is because the Church expects the faithful to use their own prudential judgement, or sanctified common sense, in such matters. There cannot be some list of ‘forbidden’ films or stage productions, any more than there can be a list of forbidden rock or pop songs. No one, not you or I, not even the Catholic Church, could draw up such a list even if they wished to do so. This may be the Fundamentalist approach, but it decidedly is not the Catholic approach.

As regards being judgemental towards our brethren, you are quite right and we must be on our guard respecting this - “Judge not, that you be not judged” (St. Matt. 7: 1). However, does our dear Lord really mean to teach by these words that it is wrong, under any circumstances, to pass an unfavourable evaluation on the conduct or opinions of others? Moreover, does it mean that it is wrong and uncharitable to reprove the sins and shortcomings of others until we ourselves have attained perfection? If such an interpretation were true it would make it well-nigh impossible to ever condemn error, blasphemy, immorality or false doctrine and ideology. It is important also to distinguish carefully between passing judgement on some film, stage production or music genre, because we think it blasphemous or culturally unwholesome, and the individual people who do not share our viewpoint.

What our Lord means to condemn, surely, is a censorious and fault finding spirit and a readiness to blame others for trifling misdeeds or genuine matters of indifference. The habit of passing rash and hasty judgments and a disposition that magnifies the errors and infirmities of our brethren, showing them in a bad light, - it is this that our Lord prohibits.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[pnewton]

Dear pnewton,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou for your response to my post.

It is perfectly true that St. Paul would employ any legitimate means at his disposal for the furtherance of the Gospel message, the operative word here being, surely, legitimate. Clearly, that would exclude any channel that was questionable or irreverent, as this would have vitiated the Gospel and denuded it of its efficacy. Thus his efforts to make the Gospel ‘accessible’ would have been counter-productive as well as dishonouring to the Christ whom he preached; it would have been to adopt the ‘wisdom of the world’ with the sad result that the ‘cross of Christ’ would have been ‘emptied of its power’ (cf. I Cor. 1: 17).

With respect to the Apostle’s words, ‘…I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some’ (I Cor. 9: 22), I cannot remember how many times I have seen this text erroneously cited to support the use of all manner of unhallowed methods in conveying the Gospel. If this is not a gross example of taking a text out of context and then turning it into a pretext, then I do not know what is.

All you are doing is reformulating the question, and begging it. Your whole premise assumes that a musical like this is dishonoring to Christ, or is “the wisdom of the world”, or is an “unprincipled manner” etc. You assume the premise, then attempt to discredit its use using your assumption.

True, there have been no official pronouncements from the Church denouncing the blasphemous musical Jesu**s Christ Super Star, and that is because the Church expects the faithful to use their own prudential judgement, or sanctified common sense, in such matters.

Blasphemous? Again, that is your opinion and your assumption, your judgement, if you will. It is not the opinion of the Catholic Church. Since the same logical fallacy is so prevelant in your post, I will link it for those burned out hippies here not aware of it’s meaing.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

As regards being judgemental towards our brethren, you are quite right and we must be on our guard respecting this - “Judge not, that you be not judged” (St. Matt. 7: 1). However, does our dear Lord really mean to teach by these words that it is wrong, under any circumstances, to pass an unfavourable evaluation on the conduct or opinions of others? Moreover, does it mean that it is wrong and uncharitable to reprove the sins and shortcomings of others until we ourselves have attained perfection?

I totally agree. However, I find it prudent to draw the line on reproving others to those things which **are **sinful. The Catechism does an excellent job of expanding on the Ten Commandments and we have libraries full of the Church’s teaching from which to draw. Application is often left to the local bishop or priest. At no point should the laity engage in expanding beyond the teaching of the Church and applying our own opinions of what is sin to others. In this case, we have a link to this movie on the USCCB website.
usccb.org/movies/j/jesuschristsuperstar1973.shtml

Now, you are not bound to believe what is written here. It is after all only an opinion. However, I find it very unseemly for a lay Catholic to condemn others as for agreeing with it. If it is sin for you, then the by all means follow your conscience, but others are not under any obligation to follow your conscience.

 

[Pax2u]

I like the music, but the movie was not well done at all. I saw it performed live a couple times…once by a group of high school kids who just did it on their own back when it was new…heartfelt. The more professional version I saw later was not good at all.

But I have to say…:“Godspell” was worse by a long shot!!!

 

[antonivs]

My catechism class played a record of some of the songs back in the early 1970’s. I ended up buying the album, watching the movie, and seeing it performed live with Barry Dennen. I just have to say I loved it.

 

[curlycool89]

The casting of a black man in the role of Judas was probably down to what is now termed by the politically correct zealots as ‘positive discrimination’. This trendy ideology is supposedly addressing all the unfavourable treatment, based upon sheer prejudice, that has been perpetrated against ethnic minorities in times past. Ironically however, this ideology itself can, and indeed does, frequently become all too discriminatory, usually against whites.

This may not have been the reason for such casting, but I suspect that, given the time that it went into production, it is highly probable, as political correct thinking was then beginning to become quite dominant and influential, especially within the arts and media.

The “original” actor for Judas looks like it was Ben Vereen, while Carl Anderson was the understudy who eventually took over the part. Why? Who knows.

All you are doing is reformulating the question, and begging it. Your whole premise assumes that a musical like this is dishonoring to Christ, or is “the wisdom of the world”, or is an “unprincipled manner” etc. You assume the premise, then attempt to discredit its use using your assumption.

You’ve never argued with Portrait before, have you? That’s his entire MO.

 

[pnewton]

You’ve never argued with Portrait before, have you? That’s his entire MO.

Heck, if I know. I have been at CAF for seven years now. It all seems a blur. I blame this on the sixties.

 

[patrick457]

The “original” actor for Judas looks like it was Ben Vereen, while Carl Anderson was the understudy who eventually took over the part. Why? Who knows.

Not really. As I’ve mentioned, the original Judas in the 1970 concept album was Murray Head (hey, there’s even a music video of him performing the title track!). Ben Vereen is the ‘original’ actor in the sence that acted the role in the original Broadway production, which opened on October 12, 1971. Now Carl had apparently already played Judas before Ben did in the first authorized American concert at Pittsburgh on July 12 of the same year.

 

[Portrait]

All you are doing is reformulating the question, and begging it. Your whole premise assumes that a musical like this is dishonoring to Christ, or is “the wisdom of the world”, or is an “unprincipled manner” etc. You assume the premise, then attempt to discredit its use using your assumption.

Blasphemous? Again, that is your opinion and your assumption, your judgement, if you will. It is not the opinion of the Catholic Church. Since the same logical fallacy is so prevelant in your post, I will link it for those burned out hippies here not aware of it’s meaing.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

I totally agree. However, I find it prudent to draw the line on reproving others to those things which **are **sinful. The Catechism does an excellent job of expanding on the Ten Commandments and we have libraries full of the Church’s teaching from which to draw. Application is often left to the local bishop or priest. At no point should the laity engage in expanding beyond the teaching of the Church and applying our own opinions of what is sin to others. In this case, we have a link to this movie on the USCCB website.
usccb.org/movies/j/jesuschristsuperstar1973.shtml

Now, you are not bound to believe what is written here. It is after all only an opinion. However, I find it very unseemly for a lay Catholic to condemn others as for agreeing with it. If it is sin for you, then the by all means follow your conscience, but others are not under any obligation to follow your conscience.

Dear pnewton,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou again for your reply to my post.

On the contrary, my response is not a ‘reformulation’ but a biblical refutation of your whole argument. You had previously stated that St. Paul would have used any legitimate means at his disposal to convey the Gospel and cited the apostle’s words in I Corinthians 9: 2 to substantiate this assertion. By way of reply I said that that text did not give *carte blanche *permission to employ any method, no matter how profane, for the furtherance of the Gospel message. To do so would be to totally disregard the context (vs. 19-22), which only shows the noble generosity of St. Paul, inasmuch as he was prepared to completely sacrifice his own legitimate interests and preferences, if that was what it took to save some men. However, this is altogether a different thing from implying that it is acceptable to use questionable evangelistic methods, so long as they communicate the Gospel in a language and idiom that will be ‘meaningful’ to modern man, especially the youth. Now this is plain biblically based reasoning and orthodox exegesis, sir, not some logical error of petitio principii.

Incontrovertibly, Jesus Christ Superstar is blasphemous and irreverent and could only ever be enthusiastically embraced and applauded in the climate of the post-Vatican II Church. Catholics who have retained an eclessial sense (sensus fidelium) instinctively know that something is seriously amiss with this ‘rock opera’ and its faults have literally shrieked at them. Moreover, such repugnance cannot be dismissed as irrational reaction to something modern or purblind hysterical resistance to the utilization of a novel musical form. Rather, it is based upon solid reasons and logically compelling argument.

First, the very fact that it is styled a ‘rock opera’ is enough to elicit a negative reaction from the faithful. That debased sensory material is clearly not appropriate or even possible for a sacred theme because rock music has always been a vehicle of blatantly un-Christian morality and the music itself conveys this godless message.

Second, it is undeniably blasphemous and even its very title, ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’,, is sufficient to flash up the warning cones and make one recoil in utter disgust. The addition of the word ‘superstar’ to the sacred name of the second person of the Holy Trinity is downright sacrilege and puts one on enquiry immediately, even before we examine the production itself.

The true scandal of this musical, and the chief reason why it is so offensive to the Catholic faithful, is that it flagrantly undermines the motives of credibility for belief in the Divinity of Christ. It thus becomes an assualt upon our most holy Faith. JCS blatantly belittles both our dear Lord and His believing brethren. The latter are attacked in their belief that their acts of faith and continued commitment to Christ are supportable by credible and cogent reasons and their Lord is shamefully denuded of His Divinity. The portrayal of Christ in JCS is a blasphemous carricature of the historical Christ of the New Testament. The ‘superstar’ figure in this rock opera is unworthy of the faith and love and total surrender Christians have given Him who is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (St. Matt. 16: 16).

Have much more to say upon this issue, but that must be all for now.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[Gordon_Sims]

The main message I’m getting from Portrait’s argument (after weeding past his personal interpretation of scripture and Vatican II bashing) is that rock music is da debil. Got it. From now on, any music I don’t like I’ll instantly start referring to as blasphemous.

On another note, my daughter was having a blast dancing around the house this morning singing along with the soundtrack. I didn’t want to shatter her mood by telling her that her heartfelt enthusiasm for Christ was blasphemous and wrong.

 

[Portrait]

The main message I’m getting from Portrait’s argument (after weeding past his personal interpretation of scripture and Vatican II bashing) is that rock music is da debil. Got it. From now on, any music I don’t like I’ll instantly start referring to as blasphemous.

On another note, my daughter was having a blast dancing around the house this morning singing along with the soundtrack. I didn’t want to shatter her mood by telling her that her heartfelt enthusiasm for Christ was blasphemous and wrong.

Dear Gordon Sims,

Cordial greetings.

My elucidation of the Pauline passages is, I think you will find, fully consonant with the interpretation given by most orthodox Catholic and Protestant exegetes. If you are of the opinion that that interpretation of Scripture is completely off beam, then can you kindly inform me as to where you think we are all erring in our misinterpretation of the Sacred text?

No amount of liking something, be it JCS or anything else, gives a man warrant for surrounding himself with philosophies and values that are in blasphemous opposition to our precious Lord and his most holy Faith.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

Is this movie/musical blasphemous? what do you think?

I love it. It’s consistently focused around one crucial Biblical truth: “Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Luke 17:33).

Jesus Christ Superstar takes liberties with its source material (basically the Gospel of John), but only in service of giving its audience an experience of the truth reflected in Luke 17:33 and elsewhere.

For instance, Judas Iscariot as a character is obviously different than the real Judas. JCS’s Judas is a very modern, secular sort of individual, who questions even the existence of God. He is in many ways a modern everyman, which makes him an ideal tragic hero: a man with good intentions with a deep spiritual flaw that eventually damns him. In this case, it’s the way he clings to an attempt to preserve Jesus’ life from suffering, unwittingly delivering Jesus to the fate he most wanted to help him avoid.

The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote that a distinguishing mark of the modern world is its necrophobia. Jesus Christ Superstar portrays this modern necrophobia as incompatible with the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, the only character in the musical who heroically succeeds in rising to the challenge of surrendering to death in obedience to the will of God.

Every character is so well-developed and unique, yet every single character’s dramatic struggle in some way revolves around the inescapability of death and the possibility nonetheless of victory over it.

I could say more, but that’s just a basic intro to how I feel about it.

One final note: JCS does not, at least in its lyrics, include the Resurrection, though I’ve seen Christian productions that use staging in the final scene to include/allude to it.

The play verbally and physically insinuates that Jesus had a sexual relationship with Mary of Magdala.

While some productions do insinuate that through their staging/blocking, this choice is actually incompatible with the text/script, in which Mary Magdalene - in the context of her wrangling over how she feels about Jesus and how he feels for her - explicitly sings,

Yet, if he said he loved me, I’d be lost; I’d be frightened. I couldn’t cope, just couldn’t cope. I’d turn my head; I’d back away; I wouldn’t want to know. He scares me so. (I Don’t Know How to Love Him)

I’ve seen a production or two of JCS that made blasphemous choices - like having the Apostles get drunk at the Last Supper. Not coincidentally, these are the same productions in which the actor playing Jesus clearly doesn’t understand the role and doesn’t do justice to it.

The text and music themselves are wonderful and, I believe, deeply rooted in many characters’ experience of the Biblical truth that I referenced above.

Yes, there are some very troublesome parts… Especially when Jesus says, “For all you care, this bread could be my body.” Not really what was said, but for all we know this is how Judas may have heard it?

In the script/text, and in every version I’ve seen or heard, Jesus immediately goes on to say, “This is my blood you drink. This is my body you eat.” Thus the complete line goes like this:

**The end is just a little harder when brought about by friends. For all you care, this wine could be my blood. For all you care, this bread could be my body. The end… this is my blood you drink; this is my body you eat. If you would, remember me when you eat and drink. **(The Last Supper)

Judas probably WOULD think that there was no point in Jesus sacrificing His life, assuming he was aware beforehand that this was the plan.

The overwhelming message I get from the scene and final song is simply one of Judas being utterly confused by Christ, being a person the like of whom he has never encountered before.

Exactly!

I just wish they’d have mentioned the Mother of God.

Me too! That’s really my one disappointment with it.

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

It is undeniably blasphemous and even its very title, ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’,, is sufficient to flash up the warning cones and make one recoil in utter disgust. The addition of the word ‘superstar’ to the sacred name of the second person of the Holy Trinity is downright sacrilege

Not so.

The musical is in many ways about the fact that the teachings and example of Jesus Christ are incomprehensible to the modern, secular world (as I mentioned, the musical reinvents Judas Iscariot as a modern everyman). If a modern, secularly-minded individual truly and honestly engages the enduring influence of Jesus Christ on all of human history, he can experience only one thing at first: bafflement. What makes him so special? A man who never held any office, led any army, never went very far from his home, has become easily the most influential human being ever to live. Why?

That is the question that Judas as a character faces in this musical, and that he fails to understand, with tragic consequences. To superficial modern sensibilities, Jesus is a superstar, and our Lord’s enduring influence and uniqueness is simply incompatible with a modern, materialist, secular worldview. Judas’ failure to grapple with this reality in a spiritually beneficial way is the chief subject of the musical.

The true scandal of this musical, and the chief reason why it is so offensive to the Catholic faithful, is that it flagrantly undermines the motives of credibility for belief in the Divinity of Christ. It thus becomes an assualt upon our most holy Faith.

Please cite a lyric that does this. You might find a few that make the full humanity of Jesus perfectly clear, but none that undermine Christ’s divinity.

What you will find, however, is lyrics that imply a knowledge on Jesus’ part greater than that any mere mortal (anyone who’s “just a man”) could have - i.e. an exact knowledge of when and how he will die, foreknowledge of the exact circumstances of Judas’ portrayal and Peter’s denial, etc.

The ‘superstar’ figure in this rock opera is unworthy of the faith and love and total surrender Christians have given Him who is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (St. Matt. 16: 16).

On the contrary, the “superstar” figure of this rock opera courageously leads the way into surrendering oneself into the hands of the living God, even unto death. And the musical makes quite clear the disastrous consequences - “whoever seeks his life will lose it” - of a refusal to follow Christ through death through everything from Judas’ suicide to allusions to the eventual fall of Jerusalem to the Romans.

 

[pnewton]

Dear pnewton,

Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou again for your reply to my post.

On the contrary, my response is not a ‘reformulation’ but a biblical refutation of your whole argument.

But it wasn’t. It did nothing but expand begging the question of what is appropriate, blasphemous or any other wrong. No layperson has the authority to make that determination for anyone but himself.

Incontrovertibly, Jesus Christ Superstar is blasphemous and irreverent and could only ever be enthusiastically embraced and applauded in the climate of the post-Vatican II Church.

This statemen is far from “incontrovertible” in light of the USCCB’s website review.

Catholics who have retained an eclessial sense (sensus fidelium) instinctively know that something is seriously amiss with this ‘rock opera’ and its faults have literally shrieked at them.

Begging the question. It labels catholics who have comprise sensum fidelium as those that agree with you, despite the fact that this is not the bishops nor the majority.

First, the very fact that it is styled a ‘rock opera’ is enough to elicit a negative reaction from the faithful.

Except that it hasn’t elicited this response from the faithful, unless you define the faithful of those that faithfully agree with you. The mere statement of your opinion as “the very fact” tells me that you are not even trying to be logical or objective.

 

[patrick457]

For the benefit of “the many” (in the Biblical sense ) I’d do a little analysis here of each music in JCS.

Overture

The Overture is actually one of the parts of the opera I love the most. Many productions have handled it differently. The 1973 film for instance has the actors arrive on location - which is actually the ruins of Avdat in the Negev Desert! - and dress up into their roles, somewhat giving the implication that this is not so much a film on Jesus’ life but a film about a group of people acting out the life of Jesus in the desert. The 2000 film, meanwhile, shows various people in the act of writing graffiti into a wall somewhat resembling the Berlin Wall in its later years with messages in various languages (such as Abattons le Fascisme, Freedom/Democracy for all, Jesus loves us, or Nothing to be gained here - with an arrow pointing at a sleeping (dead?) man), and running away from police reminiscent of Darth Vader, which gives out a feel that it happens in a sort of bleak, futuristic world. I also knew of one which tried to compress the whole of Salvation History starting from Adam and Eve at this point.

But leaving aside the portrayals, I’d point out one thing about the music itself: if you listen really well, you would find that the melody is actually a truncated version of Trial before Pilate and the first few bars of Superstar. So before the opera even begins, we already are already given a foreshadowing of Jesus’ suffering and death (and perhaps His subsequent “glorification” as St. John would say, as the presence of Superstar suggests)! In this respect, it is similar to the Gospels.

The Passion of Jesus forms the core of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It is basically the climax of all four, catching up themes that weave their way through the evangelists’ entire portrayal of our Lord’s life and bringing them to a dramatic completion. The Evangelists give much of Jesus’ life a short shrift without much detail, but once Holy Week starts, the narrative pace slows down and details come into sharp focus, as if the Evangelists want their readers to see them clearly. Everything that has happened beforehand, all the teachings and the miracles, can not be properly understood except as the back story to the central theme of Christ’s sacrificial death upon the cross and His subsequent resurrection. The shadow of the Cross looms large across all four Gospels. This was why someone had said that the Gospels are but records of Christ’s suffering, with increasingly longer prefatory material.

The 1973 film also catches up to this theme of foreshadowing. Once the recognizable tune of the 39 Lashes (more on the tune later) play, the camera focuses on the actors untying the cross from the bus’ roof and getting it down. Immediately before this, we are shown Carl Anderson (Judas) just about he was getting off the bus: the rope which they used to tie the cross to the bus drops down in front of him!

Of course, once Superstar hits, we see Ted Neeley (Jesus) dressing up into his tunic, with his arms outstretched into heaven, with the sun forming a sort of radiant glow, reminiscent of the nimbus or mandorla of Christian art, around his person.

 

[patrick457]

Except that it hasn’t elicited this response from the faithful, unless you define the faithful of those that faithfully agree with you. The mere statement of your opinion as “the very fact” tells me that you are not even trying to be logical or objective.

Personally, I never really like the distinction some make between “pre-Vatican II” and “post-Vatican II” as if the Church that existed in both times are different entities. I mean, we might as well distinguish between the pre- and post-Tridentine Church, or pre- and post-Nicaea, pre- and post-Vatican I, or pre- and post-Jerusalem.

 

[patrick457]

Continuing:

Heaven on their Minds

The first number of the opera, where Judas expresses in a monologue his concern over Jesus’ rising popularity and the negative repercussions that it will have.

I would devote here a small section on the 39 Lashes motif. Aside from the Overture, there are three places where this motif appears: Heaven on their Minds, Judas’ Death (in a highly-distorted fashion) and of course Trial before Pilate. The interesting thing here is that the motif is used twice for Judas, and once for Jesus, apparently in cases when the two main characters are in some way, in pain. In Judas’ case, it is used when he is tortured by what he perceives as the foolishness of the other disciples and Jesus’ apparent disregard for his concerns (Heaven on their Minds), and when he is tortured by his own despair in realizing that he was but a pawn in the Divine plan, leading to his suicide (Judas’ Death). In Jesus’ case, it appears when He is flogged under Pilate’s orders. So for Judas, the motif underscores his emotional/mental suffering, while for Jesus, it underscores His physical suffering.

There is also an element of irony present in the motif when used for Judas: when it shows up in Heaven on their Minds, Judas proclaims: “My mind is clearer now, at last all too well / I can see where we all soon will be,” but in Judas’ Death: “My mind is in darkness - my God, I’m sick / I’ve been used, you knew all the time…”

In contrast to the Gospels, where the Judas is somewhat one-dimensional (he is always referred to in the context of His handing over Jesus even before the actual event, and even then, the Evangelists never give a clear reason for his actual motives), Judas is given some depth and becomes a rather complicated character in JCS.

I quote again from the article I linked before:

Judas is characterized as keeping some distance from the other apostles and followers who pursue violent revolt against the Roman occupation. Judas is described as staying out of the apostles’ party from the beginning. Judas sings “Heaven on Their Minds” being alone far away from other followers of Jesus, while they are making Jesus their “Superstar.” He wants to secure social and political stability, but other followers of Jesus and Jesus himself, who does not seem to refuse their request from Judas’ point of view, do not listen to Judas’ warning:

They think they’ve found the new Messiah.

And they’ll hurt you when they find they’re wrong …

All your followers are blind.

Too much heaven on their minds … (“Heaven on Their Minds”)

The characterization of Judas is complicated. He is not getting along well with the other apostles; he wants to protect—mistakenly—Jesus from heading toward presumed self-destruction but in vain; he is used by the Jewish authorities and self-allegedly by God; he wants to love Jesus but he does “not know how to love him”; and he finally destroys himself by committing suicide. The heavenly chorus laments over the miserable destiny of Judas: “Poor old Judas. So long Judas.”

 

[Portrait]

But it wasn’t. It did nothing but expand begging the question of what is appropriate, blasphemous or any other wrong. No layperson has the authority to make that determination for anyone but himself.
This statemen is far from “incontrovertible” in light of the USCCB’s website review.

Begging the question. It labels catholics who have comprise sensum fidelium as those that agree with you, despite the fact that this is not the bishops nor the majority.

Except that it hasn’t elicited this response from the faithful, unless you define the faithful of those that faithfully agree with you. The mere statement of your opinion as “the very fact” tells me that you are not even trying to be logical or objective.

Dear pnewton,

Cordial greetings and sorry for the delay in my response, but I was unable to submit my post to you earlier today owing to some technical hitch.

Forgive me, dear friend, but you appear to be using the begging the question argument to justify that which is indisputably blasphemous and irreverent and in so doing you are abjectly capitulating to the vagaries of popular relativism. Alas, this is a common tendency among orthodox neo-Catholic’s who, for the most part, have embraced a hand in hand with the world type of religion and who reclacitrantly refuse to keep themselves “unstained by the world” (James 1: 27).

The USCCB’s web site review comes as no big surprise, given the age in which our lot is sadly cast. We live at a time of unprecedented spiritual declension and lowered public opinion when the spirit of the age has, in truth, infilitrated the Church, causing it to abandon its once austere practice of the Faith and to be befouled by all manner of worldliness and compromise. This is a sad indictment upon the contemporary Church and we ought to be repenting in sackcloth and ashes for giving such an uncertain blast on the trumpet, thus causing the credibility and witness of Holy Mother Church to be gravely undermined in the eyes of the world.

Undoubtedly, many Catholics here will regard JCS as an immensely moving, eloquently serious and thoroughly legitimate and respectful effort to communicate the Gospel in the language and idiom of pop and youth culture. Unfortunately, such persons are gravely mistaken and misguided because this profane rock opera blasphemously presents our Blessed Lord as “just a man”, seen through the eyes of the traitor, Judas. This is hardly surprising when you have Tim Rice saying, “It happens that we don’t see Christ as God, but simply the right man at the right time in the right place” (Time, 9.11.70, added emphasis mine). Again, on a US radio station Rice said, “Basicly, the idea for the whole opera is to have Christ seen through the eyes of Judas, Christ as man and not as God, and the fact that Christ himself is just as mixed up and unaware of what he is as Judas is”. Why any God fearing Catholic would wish to watch this impious musical when one of its co-writers can utter such blasphemy, is beyond belief. It is impossible to turn a blind eye to this flagrant straying away from the our Lord’s Divinty because it woefully fails in presenting the real historical Christ.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[pnewton]

Forgive me, dear friend, but you appear to be using the begging the question argument to justify that which is indisputably blasphemous and irreverent and in so doing you are abjectly capitulating to the vagaries of popular relativism.

I think your subsequent posts make more point all the more clear. Pointing out logically fallacies is not moral relativism. That term too is used as an umbrella for a number of boogeymen that have nothing to do with moral relatvism.

 

[patrick457]

Undoubtedly, many Catholics here will regard JCS as an immensely moving, eloquently serious and thoroughly legitimate and respectful effort to communicate the Gospel in the language and idiom of pop and youth culture. Unfortunately, such persons are gravely mistaken and misguided because this profane rock opera blasphemously presents our Blessed Lord as “just a man”, seen through the eyes of the traitor, Judas. This is hardly surprising when you have Tim Rice saying, “It happens that we don’t see Christ as God, but simply the right man at the right time in the right place” (Time, 9.11.70, added emphasis mine). Again, on a US radio station Rice said, “Basicly, the idea for the whole opera is to have Christ seen through the eyes of Judas, Christ as man and not as God, and the fact that Christ himself is just as mixed up and unaware of what he is as Judas is”. Why any God fearing Catholic would wish to watch this impious musical when one of its co-writers can utter such blasphemy, is beyond belief. It is impossible to turn a blind eye to this flagrant straying away from the our Lord’s Divinty because it woefully fails in presenting the real historical Christ.

Hate to say this again, but source? I know of the first quote, but I’d like to see a source for the second quote.

A quasi-religious revival is stirring in pop music. Three of the biggest hit singles of 1970 bow deeply to religion—Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge over Troubled Water, the Beatles’ Let It Be, and Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky. Bob Dylan’s latest album New Morning contains a new song. Three Angels, that chides everyday people for their indifference to God. Far and away the most ambitious pop venture into the Scriptures is a new English rock opera, Jesus Christ, Superstar, released last week in the U.S. on an 87-minute, two-LP album by Decca. As a musical retelling of the seven last days in Christ’s life, it rivals the St. John and St. Matthew Passions of Bach—in ambition and scope if not in piety or musical exaltation.

With an appealing variegated score by Andrew Lloyd Webber and words by Tim Rice, Superstar builds to considerable impact and evocativeness, in part because it manages to wear its underlying seriousness lightly. What Rice and Webber have created is a modern-day passion play that may enrage the devout but ought to intrigue and perhaps inspire the agnostic young.

At 22, Webber, the son of a composer, is an articulate champion of all kinds of music who grew up on Bill Haley but customarily recommends Stravinsky’s taut, granitic Symphony in Three Movements “as an object lesson to any rock band that wants to play with precision and tight sound.” Rice, 25, attended Lancing College, then spent two years working toward a career in law. Together they have fashioned a clever, youthful blend of skepticism and romantic questioning. Early on, Judas reflects on Christ:

I don’t know why he moves me He’s a man—he’s just a man He’s not a king—he’s just the same As anyone I know.

One of the closing choruses is full of questions:

Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! Who are you? What have you sacrificed?

Greatest Story? To a large extent, Webber and Rice share Judas’ doubts. “It happens,” says Rice, “that we don’t see Christ as God. but as simply the right man at the right time in the right place. It is a great and inspiring story, though.” Shorn of the Resurrection, of course, the Passion and what preceded it are something less than “the greatest story ever told.” Perhaps that is why Webber and Rice, both of whom were brought up in the Anglican Church but eventually rejected it, have not worked too hard in Superstar to get the Christianity out of Christ. Despite Judas, both libretto and music are provocatively ambiguous about Christ’s divinity. At The Crucifixion, the slow, chromatic climb of the orchestra is a compelling suggestion that Christ’s spirit is ascending. The opera’s last line is “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

By next year (Life Magazine, May 28 1971):

“We were basically trying to tell the story of Christ as a man,” says Tim Rice, the 26-year-old Englishman who wrote the lyrics for Superstar. “I think he increases in stature by looking at him as a man.” Rice also tried to portray the other Gospel figures as real and often complicated people. “In the Gospels,” he says, “Judas is a cardboard figure. Every time he is mentioned there is a snide remark. I believe that Judas was the most intelligent of the Apostles and that is why he got into such a dilemma.” Andrew Webber, who wrote the music, is convinced that it is a secular drama that Christ’s story holds the most importance today. “He must have been an incredibly powerful man,” Webber says. "He had great power over women, so he was either very attractive or very magnetic. Webber and Rice’s secular approach led them to bring Jesus Christ Superstar to a close with his death. But the Kansas City production made a dramatic point of Christ’s ultimate divinity. Spotlights symbolizing the Resurrection broke through the darkness covering the stage and the cast sang a reprise rejoicing in Christ’s victory over death.